To:CHARLES DUMAS[1]

Written:Written on December 21, 1917 (January 3, 1918)Published:First published on March 6, 1959, in French inThe Times Literary Supplement(London) No. 2975.

      First published in Russian on April 14–20, 1963, inNedelya, Sunday supplement ofIzvestia, No. 16.

      Printed from the original.

      Translated from the French.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1975,

      Moscow,Volume 44,

      page51b.Translated:Clemens DuttTranscription\Markup:D. MorosPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive.You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work, as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

21/XII–1917

DearCitizen Charles Dumas,

Mywife and I recall with great pleasure the time we
met you in Paris, rue Bonier. We are very grateful to you
for the exchange of ideas and for the very accurate
information on the socialist movement in France.

Ivery much regret that personal relations between us
became impossible after such profound political differences
divided us. Throughout the war I fought against the
“national defence” trend, I always stood for a split, being
convinced that that tendency was ruining socialism
completely.

Itgoes without saying that I am writing this letter not
as a member of the government but as a private individual.

Pleaseaccept our greetings, dear citizen, and best wishes
from my wife and myself.

[1]Onhis arrival in Petrograd in December 1917, the French
socialist Charles Dumas asked Lenin to receive him, mentioning
that they were already acquainted. Lenin and Krupskaya
met Charles Dumas in Paris, where they lived from December
1908 to June 10 (23), 1912.

Duringthe First World War (1914–18), Dumas held
social-chauvinist views, for which Lenin sharply criticised him in his
workThe Collapse of the Second International(see present
edition, Vol. 21, pp. 209–10).